Don't Let Me Go
by Shatteredsand
Summary: "It's like nothing's real anymore. Nothing hurts the way it's supposed to." Everything he touches dies. Everyone he loves leaves him. He's scared and alone and everything is falling apart.


**AN: This is a consensual Elitz in a hurt/comfort kinda way. Fitz is probably a little OOC. But then, maybe not, I mean look how he canonly was with Clare.**

**Warnings: Slash, Elitz (Eli/Fitz)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi.**

**Don't Let Me Go**

Fitz's fist slams sledgehammer hard into Eli's face. Blood spurts heavily from a nose that he thinks may be broken. It stings and burns and every breath Eli's struggling to take makes a sickly wheeze. He throws a half-hearted right hook that Fitz casually brushes aside before slipping up and under Eli's guard and nailing him in the stomach. He can taste the bitter tinge of copper in the back of his throat.

His blood sliding smooth and slick down his throat. It dribbles down from his nose and lips even as he turns a coughs more of it up and out of his stomach where it's not supposed to be at all. The alley spins and he has to lift a heavy hand to the wall to stop himself from free-falling. Face-first into the ground.

In his moment of distracted weakness, Fitz has moved in and enveloped Eli in his arms. He wishes they were harsh and rough and cruel. He wishes they would squeeze the life out of him with bone-popping intensity. But they aren't, and they don't. Eli sags, lifeless, in the arms he wishes would be the death of him.

"Does that hurt enough for you?" Fitz whispers against the shell of his ear. So sad. So worried. "Is it _real _enough?"

_"It's like nothing's real anymore, Fitz. Nothing hurts the way it's supposed to."_

_"Well, I'm real."_

_"Sometimes, you're the only thing that is. Sometimes...even you're not."_

Eli struggles suddenly against those arms wrapped around him. Protecting him. Helping the person who doesn't _want _to be saved. Who doesn't _deserve _to be saved. He doesn't want this, doesn't want compassion and understanding. Doesn't want _love_.

"Let me go!" the words slip from blood-slicked lips as a scream. High and shrill and panicked. Because he needs Fitz to hurt him. Betray him. Beat him and break him. He needs Fitz to make it all go away. Not to make it all real. The tears start slow, a steady building that Eli can't seem to stop. No matter how much he wants to. The sobs slip out, choking him from the inside out until they're released. He clings to Fitz with a desperation that scares him.

"It's oaky." Fitz soothes just as desperately, his arms holding the trembling and sobbing boy with all the great strength they possess. "I'm here and it's _okay_."

But it's not. And it won't be.

Maybe it never was.

"This isn't real!" Eli shouts. Determined to convince himself that this isn't happening. His worlds has been swallowed by a blackhole and he's determined to go with it. Follow the shattered shards of his happiness into a numbing darkness so deep he'll never get out.

Because he is alive. And they're not.

Because Death came and took them away and left him all alone again.

Because everything he touches dies.

And leaves him behind, scared and alive and _alone_.

"Yes! Yes, it is." Fitz almost snarls, arms closing around him just a little bit tighter. "It's real. _I'm _real. And I'm not going _anywhere_."

Not yet. But Eli's touched him. He'll be gone soon too.

Lost in the Reaper's arms.

"Just let me go." But his words have lost their edge. Have broken down and crumbled into pathetic whimpers.

"Not for the world." Fitz says with such conviction that Eli has no choice but to believe him.

Fitz will never leave him. Won't surrender to death. Fitz isn't Julia, isn't Mom, isn't Dad. Fitz is strong.

And he won't let go.

Won't abandon Eli for the reaper.

Won't loosen his hold on this thing they have.

Won't run away from him and the heavy cloud of destruction that hovers around him.

Fitz won't let go.

So Eli won't either.

**AN: So Eli's parents are dead in this fic. I'd like to think rather recently, which is why he's falling apart. Eh, review. Please. This something...off about this story and I need you to tell me what it is...**


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